


All the Time in the World

by Messypeaches



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universes, Because seriously why would I?, Character Death Fix, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Fix-It, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I really promise happy endings, M/M, Multi, Other, Time Travel Fix-It, happy endings, phlint - Freeform, that's a thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-02-26 23:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Messypeaches/pseuds/Messypeaches
Summary: Howard stared.Steve sighed. “Just read the timeline.”“Who put this together?” Peggy said, flipping through her copy and making a note with a fine blue pen.Steve grinned. “My biggest fan.”





	1. To get the ball rolling

**Author's Note:**

> I always liked the Laura is Clint's sister fanon theory so I'm using it here.  
> Eitri is the dwarf from infinity war if you forgot. I know I had to look it up.

When Steve comes back the platform is..

Crowded.

.... Banner stared. "What part of-"

"So some _other_ timelines are going to look different," Steve said. "We're not sending them back. We fail in like, five thousand other timelines anyway according to Strange and-"

“We can’t! We have to-“ Banner starts but it’s too late. The woman in red is walking briskly off the platform and surveying the place with a sharp eye.

There is, to Bucky’s lack of surprise, a small suitcase. The woman always could pack light.

The small female child-thing however IS a bit of a surprise. “You couldn’t let her grow a little?”

“She’d already been through hell-“

The girl muttered something in Russian.

“I wasn’t going to make her go through more of it,” Steve summarized.

“She’s not OUR Natasha,” Banner tried. “You technically kidnapped these people-“

“I had the situation well explained,” said Peggy Carter, interrupting the large green man. “And she’s… suffering from… What was it called again dear?”

“Stockholm syndrome,” Steve said cheerfully, tossing he shield to Sam in a gentle underhand.

“Carter,” Bucky says.

“Barnes. What on earth is that hairstyle?”

“You should see me with eyeliner,” Bucky said without missing a step. “Welcome to the future.”

“Wait why do I have this-“ Sam says. “Did you steal this too?”

“The gems are back where they should be,” Steve said. “Anyway no one was using this.”

“What else did you do?” Bucky asks because this can’t be all of it. He’s starting to smile though, it’s wide enough it hurts his ears.

“Gave Howard a few pointers,” Steve said. “And it’s yours now, Sam. I quit. I’m gonna do something different.”

“Oh god,” Sam said. “What?”

“I’m thinking politics.”

“Oh god,” says Banner at the same time that Peggy pulls out a small pistol and pumps a few rounds into the device that Banner is standing next too.

“I didn’t even realize how much I missed you,” Bucky tells her sincerely.

There’s scrambling sounds from the other side of the house where the last of the funeral guests had been talking.

Gunshots tended to be a thing they noticed after all.       

“What the hell did-“ Clint started, rounding the corner. Then stopping. “But you’re not supposed to-“

“He’s fucking up other timelines,” Banner said, looking at the now softly smoking components of his time machine.

“Language,” Steve said, grinning. “Natalia, this is Clint.”

There was a calculating look on the little girls face that made Clint want to sob and possibly punch Steve in his face. What he did instead was. Take a knee. “Hiya Natasha,” Clint said. “I’m Clint.”

She looked around then back at Clint. Still calculating. It was like watching a calculator work, then her face shifted and she just looked young.

Clint knew better. He fucking knew better. But he held out his hand anyway.

“I think I got all the knives off her,” Steve said. “Natalia, go with him, alright?”

Natalia looked at Steve, and then at Clint again, and took his hand.

That was how he found out Steve had missed a knife.

 

 *******************

Twenty stitches later…

 

So what sort of worked was giving Natalia unlimited access to the internet via Friday. Clint sat across from his sister and kept an eye on the bowed redhead.

She was what, fifteen? Clint tried to remember what that meant for her and gave up. Nothing good.

“It was pretty shallow,” he assured her.

Laura just nodded.

 ****************

There was someone in the house.

Peggy pretended she didn’t know and put her keys away.

She couldn’t point to what exactly had tipped her off but there was certainly someone here. In her house.

“Please don’t shoot.”

Four rounds later and some very loud clangs and she was no longer about to shoot her intruder. Again. Yet.

Her grip was too tight on her pistol and she made herself relax. Didn’t stop pointing her gun at him. Used her other hand to reach out, turn on a light to confirm what she already knew but couldn’t yet accept.

“You better have a good explanation,” she told him, finally.

“Well I thought if I was standing on your porch someone notice,” Steve said. “And I didn’t want to deal with police or SHIELD.”

“That’s not what I-“

“I know,” he said. “I know. It’s a long story.”

“Is there… Someone tied up behind my couch?”

“Technically she’s just pinned. And that’s an even longer story. Let’s… how about tea and I’ll tell you everything.”

She got out a bottle of scotch instead, leaning over and looking behind the couch.

The girl had red hair and looked furious, trying to push what looked like a large mallet off her chest and failing.  The girl looked up and blinked. Then started to tear up. “He kidnapped me!” she said.

Steve said something in Russian. Peggy recognized about half of it but could infer from the tone that what he was saying was ‘no biting’.

There was a flash of… Annoyance in the girl's eyes and then it was just sadness again, tears starting to spill in what Peggy decided was an artful manner.

 “Start with the girl behind the couch.”

******************* 

 

Natalia had thought that the world was ending.

She’d been in a classroom, learning how to shape words so well that no one would notice, how to speak perfect English without an accent she didn’t choose. Hello. How are you.

Polite words and cold words, all shaped to drop off her tongue and into waiting ears. Things men would want to hear.

She wasn’t sure which of her words would work on the man that smashed down the wall with crackling electricity and a hammer. He’d hit her teacher so hard she was sure the stern woman had been dead before she hit the ground.

The sky had gone black.

 

What was she supposed to think?

He’d grabbed her, of all of them, by the scruff of the neck and tucked her under an arm like so much cabbage. And she’d bitten him on the forearm which had both given her a nasty shock and told her that he did in fact bleed.

Then she’d started to struggle, because he’d cursed when she bit him and he cursed like an American. But then it was too late, her arms were pinned he was very strong and he was shouting in terrible Russian that the other girls should head southwest right now because he was bringing this place to the ground.

Later on the boat he talked to her, tried to explain.

She wasn’t sure she got it. Her future was wrapped up with this American's? Did she kill him? Was this revenge? Time travel seemed unlikely and surely if it was going to happen then the Motherland would have achieved it first.  Right?

They were superior after all. And nothing the Americans built was off the table for theft anyway so if they were close to achieving it then it would be taken from them, so there.

The American rubbed his face like his head was starting to hurt. The circle of red she’d put on his arm was almost healed. Fast healer. Big guy. She felt like she should know him but they’d just started cultural lessons on the strangeness that was America. He looked like he might be one of the movie stars? She wasn’t sure it was bugging her.

He said his name was Steve. That he wanted to give her a new life. She eyeballed him and wondered if it was too late to attempt a seduction. No, it was never too late, he was still a man after all.

She’d just act slowly grateful. That should work.

 **********************************

 

 

 Peggy snorted into her drink. “She tried what?”

“It’s not funny,” Steve said, turning red.

….

“Anytime you’d like to stop laughing at me?”

“So doesn’t it break your timeline if you do this?” she managed eventually. “Or did you even think about that?”

“I did but the thing is, look, I put the stones back, that stabilizes the timeline,” he said. “But we already created a different timeline because Loki-“

“The god.” She said flatly.

“Yes, that’s the one. He got away with one of the stones so we had to go further back to get it, so there’s already one weird timeline. Doing this, creates another. Probably a few but the point she gets a chance to grow up to be just. She gets to grow up. Maybe she won’t look so tired.” Steve shrugged. “Look I’m taking her with me period. You, I... I had to say goodbye properly, if you said no.”

“You haven’t asked a question yet.”

“I’m getting there,” Steve said. “But there’s a lot you need to know first. If you stay, you live a full life,” he smiled a little weakly. “You die of old age surrounded by grandkids, for crying out loud.”

“And you don’t want to deny me that?”

“I don’t want to deny you anything ever, but I’m also not going to. Look there’s a lot I have to tell you or Howard or both of you, because if I’m going to mess up a timeline I’m going to do it right, god dammit,” he said, arm twitching like he wanted to thump the table top. “Bucky’s alive and someone has to go save him or he’s gonna kill a president. Hydra’s still a problem. Howard’s going to die and it’s going to look like an accident. That’s just the start.” He took a breath. “There’s so much that goes wrong I could stay and spend the rest of my life trying to fix it, or I could trust Howard, trust you, and go where I’m supposed to be.”

“And you’re not supposed to be here.”

Steve took a slow breath. “Maybe I was supposed to be here. Once. But that’s not… I don’t get that. I get this, instead.”

“And what is, this?”

“I see the future," Steve said. “And I want you to be a part of it but it would mean leaving everything you know and I can’t ask that, and if you come with me it can’t be just because I asked and-“

She waved a hand. “You’re worried I’ll regret it.”

“It took. Years to adjust to the changes,” he said.

“Tell me about HYDRA,” Peggy said. “Tell me everything, and I’ll figure out what to tell Howard.”

 *********************

 

“You really, really messed up that timeline,” Banner said. “What else did you do? How long were you even there?”

“Long enough,” Steve said.

“That’s evasive.”

“We’re not sending them back.”

“No, no, I get that, I heard you the first, what was it, seventy times,” Banner said. “I’m just… How do you know it wasn’t going to ruin this timeline?”

“Because Loki,” Steve said. “If Loki running around loose with a tesseract didn’t break our timeline instantly, then, what possibly could? I figured the timeline split. It could stand to split a few more times. A few more happy endings all around.”

“One in three million we got lucky and-“

“And in every universe they have those odds, we’re not the only winning universe,” Steve said.

“That’s not how, math works even, I…” Banner started, stopping.

“Universe isn’t falling apart,” Steve said. “Seems good to me.”

“I’m gonna side with Cap,” said Clint. “World's not falling apart.” He was deliberately ignoring Natalia who had been far too… Quick with that knife for the way she was acting now. All vulnerable and shit. He just wasn’t buying it.

“That’s not even the point we…” Banner started and stopped. “Fine. Whatever. I’m deleting the plans so someone isn’t temped to go fix more things. Because I have plans, for this, you know, you didn’t need to shoot it. There wasn’t a reason too.”

“Didn’t want you trying triage,” Peggy Carter said.

“Also Nebula shot her past self and didn’t vanish,” Steve said, stubbornly. “So timelines are already weird, tangled, messed up and I want more of them to be better.”

 ***********************************

 

Howard stared.

Steve sighed. “Just read the timeline.”

“Who put this together?” Peggy said, flipping through her copy and making a note with a fine blue pen.  

Steve grinned. “My biggest fan.”

 ***********************************

 

 

“Sir you knew about this.. plan of his?” Clint asked Coulson, rubbing his temples to keep from throttling the man, or trying to.

Coulson smiled. “He’s right about it being impossible to damage this timeline if half of what he told me was true,” he said, shrugging. “So I wrote up a list of events and locations with as much detail as I could in twelve hours.”

“In… Twelve hours?’ Clint asked. “When did he call you?”

“Yesterday.  Around five.”

That meant Steve had called right after the funeral, Clint realized. When he’d been talking to Wanda. Or right after.

“The internet was very helpful,” Steve added. “All sorts of people watch too many movies and have plans in case they get sent back to the fifties, so between Phil’s classified intel and people being just, the best about the weirdest things, it was about fifty pages.”

Coulson beamed.

“You could have warned me,” Clint said.

“Didn’t want to get your hopes up,” Steve said.

Clint shut his eyes and pictured shattering Steve kneecaps. It was deeply soothing. “You’re going into politics,” he said. “We have a Russian murder baby on our hands. Sam’s going to be Captain America. Tony’s still dead, right?”

“There wasn’t a good time to pull him,” Steve said, quietly. “That wouldn’t affect his kid. I don’t think he’d have wanted that. And moving vision moves the infinity stone. Besides I already had to steal more pym particles just to get to the fifties there was only so much jumping I could do.”

“Why the fifties?” Clint asked, picturing Steve in a wheelchair trying to navigate a pre ADA brownstone.

“By the seventies I’d have an established family,” Peggy said.

“Couldn’t ask her to leave that,” Steve said.

“But you asked her to leave before they existed?”

“He didn’t ask,” Peggy said. “He explained everything, and we spoke to Stark and Pym, and when he was ready to go I had already packed. I helped him put the stone back in Asgard. We left the hammer there as well. Had a lovely talk with Frigga.”

“Because it would be terrible to, I…” Clint wished Thor was still there to shake them. “So that’s. God. How many things did you change?”

“Everything I could,” Steve said cheerfully.

“I’ve already started crafting you a new identity,” Phil was telling Peggy in this borderline breathless meeting-a-rock-star voice.

“What’s going to...” Clint started, and stopped. "Nope, Never mind, I’m not asking. I’m just. I’m taking Natalia, she’s gonna have a semi. Demi? Normal life.”

Now Steve looked smug.

“Goddammit, that was the plan wasn’t it?” Clint said.     

“You know better than most what she’s been too up till this, point in her life,” Steve said. “I’ll help?”

“When you’re not being political- aren’t you a wanted felon still technically? Sort of?” Clint said.

“I’m sure we can deal with that,” Peggy said, firmly. “It seems like a misunderstanding.”

Clint gave her a look, then looked at Phil. “How is she the sane one?” he said.

“She once killed three men with a stapler and a book of regulations,” Phil said almost dreamily.

“I think I liked it better when everyone thought your ass was dead,” Clint hissed.

“You were heartbroken and you know it,” Phil said, shaking his head a little and looking back at Clint. “And speaking of vigilantes-“

“Which we weren’t!” Clint said. “Also you can prove nothing, because unlike Captain Tight-pants here I am subtle!”

“You were calling yourself Ronin and you got a shitty tattoo,” Phil said.

“I like the tattoo!”

“Look the important part is that with the thanks of a grateful universe, I’m sure we can clear up these allegations,” Peggy said.

“Fury’s on his way,” Phil told her. “He hadn’t made it to the airport yet I think he was antiquing.”

 

*****************

Steve spent the night on Peggy’s couch. Howard would be there in the morning with Pym.

She was still up, anyway. Sitting at her kitchen table reading the papers he’d brought, over and over.

The future.

So close she could touch it.

At the cost of a potential future. But that was just it, it was a potential future. There were a lot of them, Steve had said.

She got up from the table and walked quietly past the couch, pausing to look at Steve while she sipped the last of her whiskey.

The future wasn’t perfect, he’d told her about it, words tripping out as quickly as he could explain. He’d say one thing and then spend some time explaining what he’d meant by that, his vocabulary expanded with words she’d have to learn if she went with him.

Hah. If.

She went to her bedroom and started to pack.

The future sounded like it needed help, and it was a future that she had in a way already shaped. That needed help.

He hadn’t asked her to come, but he needed help.

She paused in the act of folding a blouse. Smoothing the fabric with her hands. Thinking.

He was very deliberately making this her choice, which she appreciated but was also slightly suspect of. Hmm.

She went back to the living room and gave the couch a light kick.

“Tell me again what happened to Sargent Barnes.”

He blinked at her owlishly. “Papers?” he said.

She shook her head. “Tell me the rest.”

 ************************

Natalia watched the man carefully. Eyes narrowing.

He was either deeply undercover, or a traitor.

She still had one knife left in her shoe. If he didn’t give a sign that this was a mission for him she would remove him herself.

The man in the trench coat with the eyepatch had looked at her solemnly for five minutes and then gone to shout at Steve Rogers who was supposed to be dead.

Steve Rogers shouted back a little and now they were discussing her. She could tell.

At least the hammer was gone.

Barton, the man she’d slashed at, was talking with them now too.

They were discussing her.

It sounded like the one she’d cut wanted to keep her. Probably for revenge. She looked at the ground and focused on looking scared and cowed. She wasn’t sure it was working and she was trying to use that uncertainty.

Dammit.

 *******************************

“You okay, Buck?” Steve asked Bucky the next morning at the hotel. Tony’s place…

Pepper's place now.

Was nice but it didn’t have enough beds for all the people who had come. Everyone had separate rooms. It was about an hour from the lake.

Bucky gave him a tired look. “Little Miss Motherland tried to stab me in the night,” he said. “Don’t worry I’m a light sleeper but it was a fitting end to a very long week since it started five goddamn years ago. How about you?”

“No one tried to kill me,” Steve said. “I got Peggy a StarkPad and taught her about the internet; that ate up most of the night.”

“Making a list of other people to save?”

“… They took the chrono GPS away from me,” Steve said after a moment. “Apparently I can’t be trusted.”

Bucky felt his mouth twist a little into an almost smile. “No shit. I almost thought you weren’t coming back.”

“Aw, come on.”

“Not like, on purpose,” Bucky said. “But I could see you taking it as a second chance to make things better but faster, you know? And getting caught up in it.”

“I almost did,” Steve said. “Took a few days to tell Howard everything I thought he needed to know, but come on. I haven’t seen you in five years. I wasn’t going to take any longer than it took.” He exhaled. “Also I went to the early fifties instead of the seventies so I couldn’t really steal more Pym particles so it was a there and back trip.”

“You’re such a bastard.”

Steve smiled brightly. “Yeah but you still love me right?”

Bucky grunted a confirmation, nodding his head once. Then he sighed. “Yes. But that doesn’t make you a nicer person.”

“I’m nice enough,” Steve said. “Anyway nice and a nickel’ll get you some gum.”

“Didn’t you once get me in a fight with a guy for being rude to-“

“Respect's not the same thing,” Steve said.

It was an old argument, Bucky didn’t have to pay full attention to it anymore.

He did anyway, watching Steve’s eyes light up. Crinkle at the edges.

Five years. Didn’t feel like five years but he could see it on Steve’s face. What he couldn’t see was the beard.

Steve did shut up mid-point when Bucky brought his hand up to Steve’s face.

Steve leaned into Bucky’s palm, smiling. “What?”

“Nothing,” Bucky said. “Kinda liked the beard.”

“I’ll grow another one.”

“Shouldn’t we ask Peggy first?”

“Ask Peggy what?” Peggy asked.

“Steve needs to grow his beard back,” Bucky said, looking at her. Pulling his hands back automatically to almost go to attention.

Steve smiled at her. “I had a beard. It was a thing,” he said. “Bucky liked it.”

“It was soft,” Bucky said to her, making himself relaxed a little, spine unstiffening. Smiling at her and willing himself not to be tense. Which he wasn’t sure was working.

She was eying him up in a predatory manner. At least it felt predatory.

 _Don’t squirm,_ he told himself.

“Barnes, if you’ll leave Steve to re-growing his beard I think you and I need to have a discussion. It’s a little overdue but better late than never.”

And she took his arm and gently guided him down the hallway. Away from Steve. 

Bucky did send a help-me look over his shoulder at the bastard but the man was just smiling uselessly.

 

********

The phone call had gone like so.

Coulson had been talking to Daisy seriously when his phone had gone off. Unknown number.

He’d answered. 

What Daisy heard was, as follows.

“How did you get this- I… What? Yes sir…... Sir…. What about…” And Coulson had stopped and listened for a moment, nodding half to himself. “I can do that. When do you need it by? Alright, I can do that. Of course sir.”

And then Coulson had, from Daisy’s point of view, vanished. Just gone into his office and shut the doors. In the morning Lola was gone and so was he.

They’d just gotten back to this dimension, too.

 ***********************************

 

Clint sat on the hotel room’s couch.

Phil sat across from him in the room's single chair.

Natalia sat on the bed, frowning and furiously stabbing at the StarkPad she’d been handed.

“Are you going to yell at me or just glare?” Phil asked.

“You let me think you were dead for a decade,” Clint said. “I’ve got some glaring to get out of my system before I move to yelling. I mean I knew you were alive like six years ago but seriously fuck you for never coming and telling me.”

“In front of the kid?” Phil said, dryly.

“She’ll relish the chance to find weaknesses,” Clint said. “Right, Killer?”

“You’re all insane,” Natalia muttered, poking the tablet again. They’d switched the language to Russian but it looked like she was on an English website at the moment. All elbows and knees.

“I want to know that, one, I’ll be left alone with my sister,” Clint said. “And two. What the hell, Phil?”

“Never found a good time to call,” Phil said. “And do you mean you want to keep SHIELD far away from Natalia? Because that, I can do.”

“So can I,” Clint said. “I’m thinking of moving again.”

“No forwarding address?”

“You didn’t use it last time,” Clint said, arms crossing. Leaning back.

He looked. Defensive. Natalia thought.

“You seemed to be doing fine without me, anyway and-“ Phil started.

“Oh that’s a shitty reason not to tell me you weren’t dead,” Clint said.

He was getting a little red, Natalia noted, making her fingers move over the screen, tapping blindly. This was _fascinating_.

“Why did Cap know you were alive anyway? Why did he have your number?”

“You have it too.”

“No, I don’t, Nat did cause she stole it from Fury or something and I never took it from her,” Clint said. “You _asshole_. Answer the question.”

“I don’t know. I assume Fury or Natasha gave it to him,” Phil said.

“I had your old number from the hydra file dump,” Clint said. “You’re not still using that one right?”

“No, that was like seven numbers ago. I still check the voicemail on it though.”

Clint blanched. “You’re lying.”

“No,” Phil said. “I got the message. I’m amazed you remember leaving it, you sounded very drunk.”

Oh, that was interesting. Natalia was starting to forget to look busy on her tablet.

Clint’s face was getting hard to read. Natalia twitched her hand like she expected a ruler to strike her knuckles and tried harder to place his emotions. When she got back to her teachers they would want to know everything, after all.

“I was extremely drunk,” Clint said. “And depressed. I thought I’d gotten you killed, you absolute prick! You listened to that and didn’t fucking pick up a phone?”

“I heard it about, Six months later. Seemed too late then. And for the record I did die it just. Didn’t stick,” Coulson said.

Clint’s face looked sour.

“You finished the message saying you hoped you’d see me again but probably not,” Phil said.

“Yeah well I didn’t want to end it with ‘see you in hell’ at the time,” Clint said.

Phil opened his mouth, then shut it, and looked at Natalia.

She blinked and looked back at her tablet.

“I probably can’t talk you into taking a walk with me, can I?” Phil asked. 

“Can’t leave her unattended,” Clint said. "You want to say something you just go and say it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be.”

“That what I wanted to say,” Phil explained, sighing. “That I’m sorry. For a lot of things.” He stood up, slowly. “I’ll go get paperwork settled for her,” he said, with a nod in Natalia’s direction.

“You’re not gonna grovel a little?” Clint said, glowering.

“I’ve never been good at groveling,” Phil said. “I could list the things I’m sorry about, would that count?”

“Do you have it in slideshow format?” Clint said.

“I could,” Phil said. “I have a letter I never sent.”

“Oh of course you do,” Clint said, leaning back and closing his eyes. “Yeah, that’ll work. You asshole. It better be good.”

“I’ll go get it.”

“You have it with you?”

“It stays in Lola.”

“Oh my god, Phil, seriously?”

“It’s on microfilm,” Phil said. “If you take the fuse it’s in out wrong, it self-destructs.”

“Oh my god.” Clint said. His hand was over his mouth now.

“I’ll wait while you go get it?” Phil suggested. “I think I can keep Natalia from leaving.”

“Give me the damn car keys.”

Phil handed them over, Clint left.

“When did you really write the letter?” Natalia asked.

“I really did write it, in it’s current form, about four years ago. Before that it was on paper. Have you ever heard of letter-locking?”

She shook her head slowly.

“It’s a good, low tech way to know if somethings been tampered with," Phil said. “There’s tutorials on youtube.”

 

 *********************

Laura found Clint sitting on the back of a red hot rod automobile holding something up to the light on his phone.

 And swearing.

“Clint are you-“

“It’s a- that son of a bitch!” Clint yelled.

“What son of a –“

“It’s a love letter!” Clint snarled. “I’m gonna go murder that son of a bitch.”

“Okay,” she said. “Need help hiding the body?”

He dropped into the driver's seat and started the car. “I have to go buy a ring first,” he said darkly. “I’ll be back soon.”               

 ****************

 

So there was something niggling. It was niggling Clint as he forced over his credit card to purchase a pair of damn rings.

It was this.

Steve Rogers was a stubborn bastard.

It niggled so much that he shoved at rings into his pocket, stalked past his room-

Pausing only to make sure that the door hadn’t been opened or the window and therefore Natalia was PROBABLY still in there. And pounded on Steve’s door.

“What else?” he demanded.

Steve’s mouth was red. Too red. Smeared lipstick red.

Steve blinked. “What else what?”

“Did you do. What. Else?”

Steve smiled nervously. “I’m not sure what-“

“Just tell him, and get back here,” Bucky’s voice rang out.

There was a laugh more feminine overlaying the words.

Steve turned pink.

Clint’s eyes rolled. “I’m very happy for the three of you, you deserve it, blah blah what else did you do?”

“I did what had to be done.”

“What does that even mean, you jerk?”

Steve stepped outside of the room, rubbing his neck.

He was still wearing pants at least even if Clint noted his shirt was on inside out.

“I put them back in their timelines,” he said.

“All of them?”

“Look," Steve said. “That’s a little-“

“Oh my god,” Clint said. “This fucking day I swear to god.”

“It was the Red Skull!” Steve said. Hissed it, really, “I don’t care if he is suffering for eternity as a ghost I’m not handing him back an infinity stone!”

“Oh god, Cap, you kept- what did you even-“

“I sent it with Nebula, to be destroyed,” Steve said. “So there’s one timeline where they don’t even get the damn thing. Tada. That timeline's better off.”

“I can’t even, what if, I,” Clint started and stopped.

“Look don’t pretend you know how this works,” Steve said. “No one else is going to die for that thing.”

“Who’s going to destroy it?”

 

 ******************************

Eitri shrugged his shoulders.

“You asked me to destroy it,” he said. “We didn’t know what was going to happen.”

“I assumed an explosion,” Nebula said.

She was being embraced.

She wasn’t sure what to do about that. She could see Gamora, but there was also a Gamora holding her now. Nebula took breath. “I thought you could not be … recovered.”

“We were in the stone,” Gamora said, pulling back. And noticing. Gamora.

“You’re….” Gamora started. The other Gamora, the younger one, looked uncertain.

“It’s a long story,” Nebula said.  There was a hand on her shoulder. It was not green. Nebula looked at it a moment and decided not to kill.

“Did it work?” Natasha was asking her.

“Yes,” Nebula said. “Not according to plan. I had to kill myself at one point.”

“Yeah me too. Where are we?” Natasha asked, looking around.

“It’s a little crowded,” Eitri commented, looking at the group of around fifty people who had spilled out of the light of the dying stone.  “I don’t suppose there’s food for everyone?”

“This is your world,” Nebula said, extracting herself from Gamora the elder.

“Yes, but it’s all gone bad in the five years I spent dead.”

“Five years?” Gamora the elder asked.

“I’ll fill you in, big sister,” Nebula said then pointed to the younger Gamora. “Little sister and I can fill everyone in. “

“If everyone could form an orderly line?” Suggested Eitri.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which new characters are introduced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You don't have to keep reading.  
> You really don't.   
> If the first part was self indulgent then everything from this point on is hella that but more so.

Natasha did as Eitra told her.

The vessel that Nebula and Gamora had arrived on wasn’t very large, it would barely hold the three sisters.

So Eitri was helping them build a larger vessel.

Without his hands it was, fairly slow going.

Step one? Build new hands.

“What will you do when everyone’s left?” She asked, holding a device she did not understand at exactly a fifteen degree angle.

“I don’t think everyone’s leaving,” he said, after carefully tapping the device. “Some of them had been in that stone a long time. I’ll extend an invitation to stay to the ones that don’t really have homes to go back too,” he nodded to himself at the weld the device had made. “They’ll be welcome here. I have the space.”

Natasha nodded. She understood in a way that only other sole survivors would have.

“Have you sent word back to your people yet?” he asked.

“Not yet,” she said. “I think I’d like to go back in person. Tell a few people who need to know. Decide what to do from there.”

He nodded. “Stay here as my hands for a while,” he said. “And I’ll make sure you don’t go home empty handed.”

“Why not someone whose going to stay anyway?”

“You’re steady,” he said.  “And from what I understand, I owe you my life. A lot of people do.”

“I don’t want to-“

“The fact you’re not asking for a reward is what makes me want to build you one,” he said. “A way home, perhaps?”

“That would be nice,” she said, finally. “Let’s finish this first though.”

“Of course.”

 

               

 *********************

Somewhere else.

 _VvvvVvvv Ding_.

“Stark.”

VvvvVvvvv _Ding._

“Stark wake up. The thing's doing a thing.”

The lights flickered on.

There was a groan. “What thing’s doing what?”

“Your sensor array is lighting up like a firework,” there was a rustling noise. “And the post it you glued to the thing says to wake you if it goes _ding_. It’s going Ding.”

“Past me’s a real jackass for writing that note,” Stark said, sitting up from under a heap of mismatched blankets. “Is it home?”

“No.”

“Then the post-it moved and I could still be sleeping, you brat,” she said.

“You’re awake now anyway is the important thing,” Loki said.

“I should have left you where I found you.”

“But you didn’t, such a tragedy.”

Toni got up and leaned over the hodge-podged display. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s a tangle.”

“I can see that,” Toni said. “A big one, too. Shit.” She gave the chronometer a gentle tap.

The ‘knot’ displayed across no less than seven different cell phon screens, did not untangle.

“You didn’t mess with this did you?” She asked, turning her head to eyeball loki.

“Mm. No,” Loki said, shaking his head. “Not today nothing needed soldering.”

“Okay good,” Toni said. “So what it’s picking up is fresh? Last time you mess with the sensors we were pick up ever divergent thought based universe and-“

“And I apologized,” Loki said.

“Did you?”

“I felt bad, anyway. That’s nearly the same,” Loki said, getting up out of the chair. “Energy bar?”

“Yeah. Give the tesseract a smack when you walk past just to make sure this isn’t a glitch,” Toni said, sliding into the still warm seat. “C’mon baby I just wanna get a message home.”

“I thought home was the goal?” Loki called out from around a crowded corner. “Chocolate or Peach?”

“Peach.”

Loki lobbed the wrapped thing at Toni’s head. She caught it without looking and tore it open with her teeth. “Home’s the ultimate goal but I’ll settle for a message in a bottle at this point, that outta work if we can get one of the damn Reed’s to get their heads out of their asses and you know, help.”

“You really think this, Reed could find the space between seconds?”

“I hate the man personally but he is as smart as he thinks he is,” Toni said between bites. “I guess we ready the harpoon?”

“Last time we did that we garnered a LOT of attention,” Loki said.

“Well get your game face on,” Toni said. “You haven’t had a better idea yet.”

Loki looked put out by that. “I hope you’re right mortal.” He said.

“Let’s do this.”

 *****************

 

No one saw the lights in the sky that night.

They weren’t there very long, just a flicker, really.

Clint might have caught them except he was distractedly informing his now-fiancé how the rest of their lives were going to go while giving his new murder daughter ice cream. He mistook he flicker in the hotel window for a glitching street light.

 

 *********************

 

 

Picture a bundle of straws.

Tightly packed.

But no matter how tightly packed they are, there’s stills pace in between them.

That was where Toni Stark had found herself, along with half the contents of her workshop and one and a half suits worth of parts. Building a vessel hadn’t been the hard part, when you were falling forever you got used to the feeling and made do.

But she hadn’t had any of her newer suits with her, and she’d gotten the half of the workshop with her snacks as opposed to things that might allow her to get out of this hell that was probably Reed Richards fault.

One of those straws was, on Toni’s display, having what looked like a seizure.

“I think it’s your home dimension. Or close to it,” she said, panting. Leaning on the railing. “That was close.”

“You know what?” Loki said, sitting on the ground. “I’ll take it. Close enough.” He flipped the dagger in his hand to get the last of the residue off of it. Tucked it away. “Give me enemies with tongues.”

“I think some of them had tongues.”

“You know what I meant.”

“I think one of them was all tongues.”

“You. Know. What. I. Meant.”

“Better than the teeth thing. Anyway, we’re anchored now,” Toni said. “That’s the important thing. We’re anchored and we should be able to enter the timeline and hopefully launch from there to my timeline. Does this place have a you?”

Loki leaned himself to the side and picked up a dangling screen. Tapped it. “Does blue mean yes or no?”

“If there’s a dot there’s a you, if it’s just a blank blue space then probably not,” she said. “There’s definitely no me, according to this thing. “

“I thought you wanted one exactly like your home?”

“This one's close enough I might find help.”

“Or more supplies.”

“Or more supplies,” she agreed. Wondering if Loki was going to stick around. Probably not. He was probably going to take the tesseract with him, too. She’d need another power source that wasn’t just hooking shit up to her reactor. “Where do you want to try to go first? Asgard?”

“No thank you,” Loki said.

Toni drummed her fingers against the metal iris on her chest. “Alright.” She said.

“Why not earth?”           

“I don’t know why there isn’t a me here,” Toni said. “Maybe dear old dad remembered the condoms in this timeline and I never existed but there’s always a chance something sinister happened. Oh, look. There’s been anice energy surge about…. Here,” she pointed.

Loki feigned ignorance at the location. “There’s not anything there?”

“There’s something there.”

“Are you certain?”

“I am now,” She said, looking at him with her head at an angle. “Did I mention I’ve spent time with my universes Loki? Cause I have and she’s a better liar than you.”

“It’s not a place mortals go.”

“Sweet. Well I plan on living forever so saddle up,” she said. “Does it have breathable air? Survey says… maybe?” she kicked something, sighing. “Well, the probe says maybe.”

“If you die I’m taking your things.”

“Right back at ya.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm @messypeaches on twitter, please feel free to harass me there.


	3. Dead Dwarves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first chapter is how I feel like Endgame should have ended.  
> This is all very self indulgent now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!

 

 

 

Nidavellir. Home of the dwarves.

Dwarf.

Eitri looked out at his now empty home.

Not as empty now as it had been but still.

A handful of former sacrifices was not the same as a people.

It was a start, he supposed.

He looked down at his new hands. Gloves, really that fit over the stumps where his hands had been. They were. Rudimentary by his standards but they would do to build a better set, then another.

Eitri looked up, at the  long reaching stretch of the bands that made up his world and thought about regrowing, about teaching his skills to newcomers, about…

 _Hmm_.

“You alright big guy?” Natasha asked him.

He frowned. “Do you see a light?”

“Besides the sun?”

“On, there, third band up. There’s a light.”

“Should there not be?”

“No,” he said, frowning. “Everything was shut down until Thor came, and after he left it was only a few hours until everyone died, including me. From what Nebula said, at least, as I understand it. I did not have time to do much.”

“What could it be? Another survivor?”

“I doubt it,” he said, handing her a lightweight lance. “Let’s go investigate.”

She nodded. “Is there a. faster way to get there?”

“There’s lots of transportation,” he assured her, leading the way.

 

*******************

 

“Do you need a minute?” Loki asked.

“Oh, oh I might need more than a minute,” Toni said. “Look at this place!”

“It’s just a workshop.”

She turned her head, pointed at him.  “Just? Just?! There is nothing just-“ she gesticulated wildly. “Just about this, this place is great! I think I can make our shitty little vessel, you know, less of a death trap. You go find food?”

“I don’t take orders from-“ Loki started and stopped. “We should leave in a hurry.”

“What, why what’d you find-“ she headed over and. Stopped. Stared. “At least it wasn’t fresh?”

Loki’s foot was about three inches from a very large corpse.

It was a very old corpse. Time had bared its teeth and removed its eyes and stretched its skin but it still had hair.

“That means very little,” Loki said. “They were crasftmen of fine weapons and their location was not well known. Who could have…” He trailed of f alittle. Then scowled. “What are you doing?”

“Well there’s air here I can take some of my suit parts off of our vessel and armor up a little before going exploring,” she said.

“Or we could leave.”

“And go where?” she said. “We need supplies.”

“We need our heads,” Loki said. “Attached to our bodies.”

“Look maybe you’re looking forward to eating me when I starve to death but I’m not, so fuck you,” Toni said, strapping a pair of boots on. She had to run power to them down her legs via cables but it would do for a boost even if flight was gonna be tricky and ill advised without her pressurized suit. 

“You’re a very frustrating mortal.”

“You know I get that a lot,” she said. “Come on, whatever killed that one was over here.”

*******

 

Natalia was more than a little confused by the fact that apparently it wasn’t blackmail material to know that Barton and Coulson were a romantic item.

This should be the sort of thing you could break people with! She went back to the internet to attempt to find what counted as leverage.

The thing was the internet was.

If this was a trick they had created a ton of digital documents to support their story.

No, it had to be a ruse, a complicated plan to try to confuse her loyalties. She’d bide her time, kill the traitor and possible the Steve-man, and get back to her home. Yes. That was the plan.

Soon as she finished this ice cream.

Gelato. Whatever it was called.

***********

It was almost like a one of the high speed trains in japan, Natasha thought to herself as the vehicle rushed them along.

Her feet dangled, because the seat was too tall for human legs. It was a bit like, being a child again. Everything a little to large, except no one was going to punish her if she got dirt on her clothes.

It was dusty. There was going to be dirt.

She let her feet swing a little. “Maybe it’s something automated?”

The dust was actually fine ash, she realized, rubbing it between her fingers. The spear leaned on her shoulder. She wasn’t sure what it would do when she used it but she was expecting it.

“Then it needs to be turned off,” Eitri said, leaning back. “The area we’re going too,” he said, stopped. Exhaled. “It was where Thanos held my people hostage until he had no further use of them.”

Natasha nodded.

 

******************

 

“Well whatever happened here was terrible,” Toni said.

“You’re considered clever for your kind, right?”

“Fair to middling. Why?”

“because I don’t have any idea how I lost,” Loki said, with a sigh. “I’ve had a little time to think about it and frankly I’m still not sure.”

“You underestimated someone. Isn’t that how people always loose?” Toni said, shrugging. Taking a loooong step over another body.

This one was nearly normal human sized, at least in length but from the proportions she was thinking child.

“Mmm,” Loki said. “I suppose I thought even the green one would talk. Thor always tries to talk to me.”

“Banner.”

“I didn’t have a banner.”

“His name. Hulk. Banner. Whatever he goes by in this world,” Toni said. “Help me get a chair over here, I think this is a control panel of some type.”

“I really thought he’d do more damage to the helicarrier.”

“It went differently in my universe, you know that, right? I have no idea what the hell you’re going on about-“ she put her shoulder into shoving the chair. The screeching noise echoed. It went on until the chair bumped into the body huddled under the counter.

Probably died hiding, Toni decided and climbed into the  chair. Kneeling on it let her see the surface in front of her. She gave it a thump and parts of it slowly lit up.

“It has power,” Loki said. “That usually means people.”

“It it’s powered by that Dyson sphere it could be powered for eons after everyone’s dead,” Toni said. “And these bodies are old and no one’s done anything to them. Open eyes and that, screamy look you get when you don’t tie the jaw shut. I’m thinking we’re alone.”

“What caused the power surge that you were tracking then?”

“Don’t know. Gonna find out,” she said, thumping it. “Can you read any of this?”

Loki sighed and climbed up next to her, leaning over to brush  a cloud of fine grey dust off the surface. “Yes.”

“Gonna enlighten me?”

“Oh, but you’re so clever, surely you don’t need help?”

“I’m not the Stark that kicked your ass. You get that, right?” Toni said and pointed randomly. “What’s that one translate too, if you don’t mind?”

“Up, or raise.”

“What do you think it raises?”

Loki shrugged and pushed it.

“This needs to stop,” Bucky said, firmly. “I mean it. Try to stab me again I’ll,” he stopped at looked at Steve. When he got nothing, he looked at Peggy instead. “I need a threat,” he said. “I don’t actually want to hurt her.”

“I can hear you, traitor,” Natalia said, glaring from where she was tied to a chair.

Bucky sighed. “I’m not a traitor,” he said tiredly. “I was born in New York, okay? If I was ever a traitor it’s when your motherland was scrambling my brains every three days-“

“Even then,” Steve said, protective.

“Not now Steve,” Bucky said. “The point is, Natalia, stop trying to kill me.”

She glared.

Bucky groaned. “Peggy?”

“He’s very loyal just not to the people you think you should be loyal too,” Peggy offered. Patting Bucky’s shoulder.

“I was being tortured to keep me in line,” Bucky said. “Are. Is this sinking in at all? She just looks sort of surly, Peggy.”

“What exactly was she yelling at you?” Peggy asked. “My Russian's not very good.”

“She was questioning the intact nature of my anatomy,” Bucky said, turning red.

“Ah.”

Steve gave Bucky’s shoulder a pat as well.

Natalia huffed and muttered something.

 

************************

 

Toni was pretty good at hand to hand.

She trained a lot, worked out a lot with some pretty intense people.

She wasn’t a civilian, was the point.

… Natasha still handed her ass back to her in about thirty very fast seconds.

But, Toni told herself and her injured ego, it was twenty seconds longer than Natasha’s average. At least. Her Natasha.

She blinked up at the Redhead on top of her. “Hi Nat,” she said. “No one ever taught you it’s rude to poke people with spears? It is Natasha, right? Nice to meet you.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Everyone knows the black widow?” Toni tried smiling winningly.

It looked like it was just sort of disturbing Natasha so Toni ... Kept doing it.

“You’re sort of famous for a spy. Bit like Bond. Or are you not a spy here? I’m thinking you are you move like a killer,” she rambled on, shifting her leg a little to try to get more comfortable. “What are you doing out here anyway you didn’t make all the corpses did you? Not judging if you did. Well. Maybe a little.”               

It would sure be nice, Toni thought to herself, trying to rotate her wrist, if she had someone useful with her instead of a kleptomaniac god of uselessness.

Natasha moved the spear down from pointing it at Toni’s face (yay) but instead was pointing it at Toni’s chest (Boo).

“I know I have a reputation but you could at least buy me a drink first.”

“Who are you?” Natasha demanded.

The tip of the spear went tink against the metal in Toni's chest.

“That's a bit of an existential question really-” Toni said as the iris on her reactor snapped open.

The light drew Natasha's eyes.

 _VvvvvVvvVVVVVVV_!

... Toni had taken the opportunity to make a tight fist, triggering a pulse of energy  that knocked The spear back and drilled Natasha in the face.

 Toni scrambled up, left arm.in from of her fingers outstretched for a second before she was diving for the spear.

.... She didn't get to it. Something grabbed her ankle and hefted her up bodily.

Toni made an indignant squeak and tried to use her other foot to kick but her heel just hit metal.

“Calm down,” came the deep voice.

“Has that ever worked?” Toni asked twisting flutily.

Someone large with metal gloves was holding her off the ground. A little more twist and she could see Loki under the giant mooks other arm.

“You could have warned me,” she told Loki, pointing.

“Last time he said something I didn't like insewed his mouth shut,” said the deep voice again. “Natasha are you alright?”

“That was a repulsor blast,” Natasha said, staggering to her feet.

Toni knew from experience the woman's ears were probably still ringing. Well tough, Toni's chest hurt. Using that particular Booby trap had some kickback without her suit on okay?

“Hell yeah it was,” Toni said.

“Who are you?’ Natasha asked, scooping the spear up.

Toni sighed and held a hand out. “Stark,” she said. “Toni with an I, Stark. And the big guy here?”

“Eirtri,” said Eitri, shifting Loki's weight a little. “I thought stark was male and dead from what nebula said.”

“Explain,” Natasha said. She didn't look like she knew who to point the spear at, Toni or Loki.

“As chatty as ever when under stress I see,” Loki said. “I think this is a small misunderstanding and maybe-”

“I still have the needle and thread used to shut you up last time, trickster,” Eitri said.

“I mean you no mischief,” Loki said.

“I've heard that before,” Eitri retorted.

“From... Say idiot to Dr. Who to quantum physician what's your understanding of next level intersectional dimension morphology?” Toni asked.

Natasha shifted her stance a little. “Like using the quantum realm to retrieve things from the past to affect the now?”

Toni's eye narrowed “OOoooOoooooh _you're_ the assholes that sent out the ripple aren't you? This is your Reed Richards fault, isn't it?”

“Who?” Natasha said.

“I don't know how to explain him. Imagine a rubber band with a really flaccid personality, a high iq with some doctorates and an ego the size of Galactus,” Toni said.

“Galactus?” Eitri said, looking alarmed. “He's dead.”

“Good job you,” Toni told him sincerely before looking back at Natasha. “Reed fucking Richards? sue storm slums it with him? You dont know him? Does... Does he not exist here?”

Natasha gave a small shrug. “Never heard of him.”

“Oh I'm staying. Can you put me down there Tyrion?”

“Eitri,” corrected the smith. “I could put you down but.... No? I don't think I will?”

“Cool cool I'll just hang out here then and explain quantum physics and multilayer planar theory. Cool. You're pretty quiet there Loki amazed you didn't steal you ball back and go home.”

“Someone wired it into the system in such a way yanking it out would cause an explosion,” Loki said tersely.

“Oh really I must have wired it wrong could have sworn I just electrocuted the damn thing,” Toni said cheerfully. “Okay, look, I’m not a threat. Loki might be if he was competent but apparently having a dick makes him stupider than my local Loki. I found this idiot outside of time.”

“This _what?_ ” Loki sputtered.

“You heard me godling,” Toni said. “Eating all my rations.”

“A pile of snacks is not real food anyway!”

Eitri gave them both a shake.

“You’re, Toni stark,” Natasha said. “From an. Alternate timeline?”

“Full on universe. See, it’s like tree branches. And you idiots did something weird to your which is what Reed was studying before he blew up my damn workshop,” Toni said. “Seriously can you at least hold me like a football I’m getting dizzy.”

“A what?” Eitri asked. Natasha gave him a nod, though and he set Toni down.

Now that Natasha KNEW about the arc reactor it wouldn’t work twice, Toni knew. She rolled herself to her butt and didn’t move to stand, just cracked her neck and let blood rush back to her toes. Looked up at Natasha. “Do I exist here or is there a Stark shaped hole in your world, beautiful?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to add a bunch more tags now ttyl!  
> I'm @Messypeaches on twitter!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More things happen.

************  
So it was dark.  
That was fine he could work with dark.  
It was dark and there wasn’t any. Temperature? There was a faint pins and needles sensation but he was otherwise numb.  
Tony wasn’t sure this was what the afterlife was supposed to be like. Surely it should have a temperature. Hot or cold would give him a hint at least. Right?  
But he could hear. If he listened. It was. It wasn’t easy. But he could listen. And try to talk. It wasn’t working yet but he had if not hope then a stubborn inability to give up. If that was even it?  
Maybe he just had nothing else to do. He wasn’t tired exactly.  
So he tried to talk.  
And somewhere a speaker crackled.

 

************  
“Seriously?” Toni said. “Over. Resources? But we have resources we’re lacking a good way of.. That’s the stupidest reason I’ve heard of in a long time. We need better transportation between resources and consumers.”  
“But you knew the name Thanos,” said Natasha. “You have a Thanos there,-“  
“And he’s absolutely bugfuck crazy,” Toni said, nodding rapidly. “He killed half the universe for like a week because he wanted to seduce the physical manifestation of the concept of death.”  
“A.. A week?”  
“It got sorted out.”  
“You’re hung up on the time,” Nebula said. “And not the fact death is courtable.”  
“Well she said bugfuck I assume that was just in his head.”   
“You’d think that right?” Toni agreed. “But nope. And he didn’t even mean Hela.”  
“Who?” Natasha said.  
“The norse death goddess?” Toni prompted. “One of Loki’s many bastard spawnlings?”  
“I don’t think Thor mentioned her,” Natasha said.   
“I don’t have bastard spawnlings!” Loki protested. Loki was tied up, at the moment. Eitri apparently held a grudge over some long-ago dispute. Something to do with an otter skin. There had also been talk of sewing his mouth shut so Loki had been listening patiently until now.  
“You might,” Toni said cheerfully. “How do you know? You spend your time male right?”  
“What’s that supposed to even mean?” Loki said, looking baffled now. But only for a moment before irritation won out. “Of course I do.”  
“Are you not a shape shifter here?” Toni asked. “Ah well. How dull,” she had another bite of something that had kept for seven years. Some sort of pickle Eitri had produced. It was currently the best thing she’d ever had after two weeks of snack foods. Not as good as the post-torture burger combo but pretty high up there. It crunched a little, even. Had that slightly Kimchii fizzle to it.   
Natasha was still watching her in that. Careful way. Toni didn’t mind it. If Natasha wanted her dead she’d be dead, it’d be very sad, but it’d be inevitable, and that was weirdly comforting. Natasha wasn’t a sadist.  
At least, Toni thought, pausing, her Natasha wasn’t a sadist. Hm.  
“I think I can help you improve your.. Vessel,” Eitri said, looking at the almost framework that Toni had built. It looked like a particularly large shed without most of the panels. The floor of it was just a large section of wall. It looked like it was held together with zipties, duct tape and hope.  
“It’s really just something to tie the sensors and equipment too,” Toni said. “But that’d be nice.” She flexed the fingers of her right hand making the knuckles all pop. “I can probably help you with those hands. I have a lot of experience with prosthetic limbs.”

 

************************

“I think it’s a double standard.”  
“It is not,” Peter Quill said, sighing and leaned over to the left,t his time. Where the hell is… “Ah, found it.”  
“I’m just saying he moves your stuff, I move your stuff, you yell at me,” Rocket said, pulling himself up onto the table.  
“Thor just moves my stuff,” Peter said. “I don’t like it, but he’s never turned my things into a bomb.”  
“One time,” Rocket said, holding up a finger. “A single time.”  
“I am Groot.”  
“Alright maybe twice.” Rocket conceded. “Are you and Thor over the pissing contests then?”  
Peter shrugged. “It’s fine.”  
“You’re accepting he’s better than you then?”  
“He’s not better than me!”  
“He kinda is though.”  
“I am Groot.”  
“In every metric,” Rocket agreed. “Your hair’s better than his for about five minutes every morning until he brushes it out.”  
“His hair’s not better than mine!”  
“I am Groot.”  
Rocket laughed.  
Peter groaned. “Just. Shut up about it,” he found what he was looking for and went back to the table to tune his gun up a little. “We’re getting along fine. We have an understanding. It’s my ship.”  
“Yeah, sure.”  
“I was sort of a god for a minute you know,” Peter grumbled. “I don’t brag about it.”  
“No one worshipped you,” Rocket said. “I guess your dad being creepy pans with a lot of religions I’ve heard of.”   
“I am Groot?”  
“Read a book,” Rocket said. “We’re about to jump by the way.”  
“Wait where are we going?” Peter said. “Who put in co-ordinates? This is my ship!”  
“We got a transmission while you were taking a nap,” Rocket said, pickup up peters gun and starting to tweak it.  
Peter took his gun back. “Stop that,” he said. “Message from WHO?”  
Rocket shrugged, frowned at his now empty hands. “Dunno but we’re going back to Nidavellir.”  
“Thor took the message and rerouted us, didn’t he?”  
“Eh we weren’t going anywhere important,” Rocket said. “It’s Nidavellir, anyway. You’ll like it.”   
“That’s not the- where is he?”  
“Probably piloting the ship since you were asleep? I’ll tell Mantis to get the knives.”  
“What? No, we I.. We don’t need to fight I just need to talk to him about how it’s my ship and he’s not the captain here.”  
“Sure you are.”  
“Why do you have to say it like that?”  
“Like what?”  
“like you’re lying to me?” Peter said. “Like that.”  
“Not sure what you mean there Quill,” Rocket said, and the ship lurched as it started its first jump.  
It made it a little tricky to get to the cockpit but Peter managed it.  
.. Thor hadn’t just brushed out his hair, he’d added a few new braids. Or Drax had done it for him. Peter was more than a disturbed by the two of the comparing self-care routines but whatever he didn’t care alright? Alright. He didn’t care.   
Really.  
“Why are we going to Nidavillyer?”  
“Nidavellir,” Thor corrected, flicking a switch. “Because we got a message there, and they need supplies.”  
“Message from who?” Peter said.  
“Eitri,” he said. “Said it was an emergency.”  
“So we’re giving them our supplies?”  
“We picked some up.”  
“… how long was I Out?”  
“You drank the last drops of a mead that will never again exist in this universe,” Thor said. “The grains it was brewed from grew only in asguard, it was distilled in a still made of gold, and you drank the last pint all at once.”  
“I.. I don’t remember that.”  
“Mm,” Thor said. “Mortals wouldn’t.”  
“Did I do anything else I don’t remember?”  
“You tried to out drink me,” Thor said. “And we are now a dry ship. You did wake up once the day before yesterday to vomit but you requested Mantis put you to sleep until the worse had passed.”  
“I don’t remember that either,” Peter said slowly. Frowning. Wait…. “We were planet side?”  
“We were but we left before they made us pay the tab,” Thor said. “According to Groot this is the tenth place you can’t go back to.”

“We were planet side, when did we get the message?”  
“Two hours ago. Mantis stopped putting you to sleep but you didn’t wake up at once,” Thor said, getting out of the piolets seat and gesturing. “The coordinates are already in.”  
That.. Did explain the way the pillow had been stuck to his face, Peter had to admit. He got back in his chair..  
His chair cause it was, you know, his ship… That he was the captain of.  
“Wait, is this right?” he asked, pointing with one hand and trying to adjust the seat with his other.  
“Yes?” Thor said.  
“I was out five days? How long were you out?”  
“I.. Wasn’t?” Thor said, puzzled sounding. “I spent five years much, much drunker than that, Quill,” he said, patting Peters shoulder. “You did well but you did not win the contest.”  
“You tried your best?” Rocket offered, climbing into the other piolet seat. Putting his feet up, letting auto piolet handle everything.   
“You did your ancestors proud,” Thor assured him.   
Peter somehow doubted that.

 

*********

Peter Parker on the other hand was having a very strange day.  
Stranger than normal.  
What was his life even?  
Mostly he was having trouble sleeping.  
Speakers on his computer kept, crackling to life and shutting off. It was weird. He gave up and unplugged them but then the computer screen kept crackling on then off? So that got unplugged too.  
It was just weird.  
Then it spread to his phone? His stark phone, the one that could activate his suit.  
Whatever it was.  
It kept .. There was an echo on calls?

But he couldn’t really get a different phone right now.  
And he wasn’t going to ask for a new one on the basis that this one was, what, haunted?

******

Bucky handed Peggy the cup.  
She gave it a dubious look.  
“Coffee’s weird now,” Bucky said with a shrug. “That’s an americano, it’s expresso and water.”  
She continued the dubious nature of her look and turned her gaze to what he was holding. “And that?”  
“Basically, a milkshake. Want some?” He said, holding it out. She shrugged and took a sip.   
“Also made with coffee?”  
“Yep,” Bucky said.  
Peggy handed the cup back and saw a future laden with high caloric foods. And the end of rationing had been a shock on it’s own. Now there was going to be two super metabolism’s under her roof. “Do you know how to cook, Barnes?”  
“A little.”  
“Good.”  
“Nothing fancy, but I can do a lot with eggs and spices?” he went on, thinking about it. “And chess pie. Couple of-“  
“Anything is better than what I intend to do,” Peggy assured him.  
Bucky looked at her like he was trying to picture her in a kitchen and failing. He nodded. “You going into politics too?”  
“Naturally,” she said. “The.. native Peggy of this universe laid a lot of groundwork I intend to build on. Even if so much of it was corrupted.”  
Bucky nodded.  
*************

 

It wasn’t like floating in an isolation tank.  
It wasn’t like being weightless in space.  
It wasn’t like.  
He … was he a he? He sounded.. right… Didn’t have a frame of reference for this.  
There wasn’t anything here. Except when there was Little bursts of light and color like. Fireworks. Equations. Something purer than just. Numberical equivilents this was….  
Acid. Dissolving.  
He reached out and touched the lights.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More things happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot happening here.  
> Who knows about the boat of Theseus? Anyone? Raise your hands? Cookie if you've heard it.

Loki did not reflexively stab Thor.

  
Mostly because his arms were pinned in the bear hug, and the hand that was even close to a blade was gripped by the wrist by the dangerous redhead. Natasha daughter of Ivan, or whatever.

Thor made a noise that was distressingly emotional. Loki blinked past the beard in his face and gave Romonoff a panicked look. “What did you do to him?” he hissed at her.

“He missed you,” she said, and it was hissed back but only because she could feel her ribs creaking.

Thor was laughing but it sounded strangled.

Loki kicked feebly, but his feet weren’t on the ground even a little…. “Brother!” he said. “You’re crushing the mortal.” And me, he did not add.

“So um, you sent the signal?” he could hear in the backround.

“Oh yes,” Toni said. “We need a bigger ship to get everyone back to where they belong and well, you know how things are. Natasha suggested we send a signal to Thor. You are?”  
Sneaky brat, Loki thought. How had he missed that? Oh, yes, Eitri had him in shackles still. In spite of his best behavior.

“It’s my ship,” said the voice. “I’m the captain.”

“And you what don’t have a name?”

“Thor!” Natasha said, again. “It’s good to see you too! Now please put me down?”

To loki’s annoyance, Thor did so without setting down them BOTH. He made a frustrated noise between his teeth.

“Hey big guy,” Toni said. “I think your bro there’s turning blue.”

Thor relaxed his grip a little but he was still staring at Loki in a way that was making him uncomfortable. People didn’t look at him like that unless he’d been working on them for a while. “I’m sorry,” Thor said, setting him down.  
Smiling at the damn shackles, too. “I see you met Eitri,” Thor said, amused. “How … How are you alive?”

“He might not be your Loki,” Toni said. “Technically. What’s the last thing you remember, Lok-ster?”

Loki huffed. And exhaled. “Being captured by you and your friends in Stark Tower,” he said as begrudgingly as he could manage.

Thor looked closer. “You still have the cuts from Banner slamming you on the ground,” he said, eyebrows going up.

“I may have them forever,” Loki said, looking away, trying not to huff. Pulling his head back because Thor was touching his chin.

In the backround Loki could hear Toni and Natasha comparing notes, Toni’s voice fast as gunfire. He should be paying attention to THAT, Toni was the dangerously smart one, Thor he could probably still play like a fiddle later.

Thor was hugging him again. “I thought I would never see you again after Thanos snapped your neck,” he said quietly.

Loki went still. Thor was pulling back again. Looking sad. “You should have warned me of him before,” he told Loki. “But it matters not.” He patted Loki firmly on the shoulder.

Hugged him again.

Loki wasn’t fast enough to dodge, alright? He wasn’t allowing this that was certain.

***

“It’s not a tumor, right?”

“It’s not a tumor.”

“You’ve checked?”

“It’s not a tumor.”

“Brain damage then.”

“Her brain is not damaged,” Nebula said, watching older-sister Gamora hodling Quills hands. They were standing back out of the way, probably would slip off soon.

“Then… I just have. Bad taste?” said Little sister Gamora. “What about brain worms?”

“It is not brain worms,” Nebula said. Handed her sister a canteen. “He makes her laugh.”

“And that’s a reason to have no standards?” Gamora asked, sipping at the liquid. It wasn’t strictly water but it wasn’t alcoholic either.

“It was the reason she gave to me when I asked her if she had brain worms,” Nebula said. “She also cited the fact he’s stopped mad men from reshaping the universe twice.”

“So two out of three,” Gamora said, nose wrinkling.

Nebula nodded. “Exactly.”

Gamora watched her older self lead the idiot terran out of sight and sighed. “Well.”

“Well?”

“Bet dad hated him.”

Nebula blinked. Then nodded. “I’m sure he did.”

“Good for her then,” Gamora decided.

 

 

************

Clint had a beer.

It was a nice day.

His niblets were elsewhere for now because he wasn’t going to give Natalia hostages, but Laura and the kids were having a nice Hawaiian vacation.

Phil was inside cooking something. Phil could apparently cook. That was cool.

And in about half an hour Natalia’d hit the end of the tether to the biokinetically charged implant they’d had to stick in her. She’d hit the end, and have to come back to the farm.

Clint grinned and checked his phone. Yeah, she’d slipped into the woods and started north almost as soon as the dust from Lola had settled.

He was gonna make her muck out the goat pens when she came back looking for the key. She probably still thought that the bracelet he’d stuck on her was the tracker.

Pfft. Like they were amateurs. Phil had made a few calls and come up with something injectable.

********

Peter’s phone was being outright weird, now, okay? He had to leave it plugged in because it was draining battery rather fast and he wasn’t sure who to talk to about, you know, a replacement.

Was he still an intern? Even?

There was enough of a mess with the whole having been, you know, dead thing and… And that was weird to think about. He knew. Something had happened but he couldn’t quite….

Recall?

It felt fast, someone had said, and that made sense.

It was… easier not to think about it.

Peter tried?

People kept asking.

But there were a lot of people to ask that weren’t Peter so…

That left him with his phone. It had, um, dusted with him, as far as he could tell, when he’d come back the thing had still been at 75% battery power. Internet didn’t seem to think dusted electronics worked any less well?

It was.

A mess alright.

Just a mess.

The phone chirruped.

Peter went online to try to find a fix.

And found it was a sort of. Known problem. Had started a few weeks ago. Stark phones in particularly were eating battery like candy. Some sort of virus.

Peter frowned at the internet in general and groaned.

Great.

****

Eitri ended up giving Natasha replicating knives. A sheath that always had a knife in it, even if you’d just pulled a knife out.

They were sleek little throwing blades.

She tried to decline but they were made for her, no one else would be able to use them, so it’d be a waste to leave them, and she got persuaded.

Also Thor had pulled her aside and advised her to take the gift. Eitri would not want to be in debt.

The cosmic dwarf also tweaked Quills ship.

These are all important facts that probably would have best been presented in a montage of sorts but this is, alas, the wrong medium for a montage.

***

Quill wasn’t great with being a taxi service but he didn’t complain much after Gamora thanked him.

Thor was good going back to earth and asking, in a polite way, what the fuck. Hadn’t the plan been to put the stones back? He was grateful that things had worked out but still. Had he been mistaken? If they had been planning on using them or fucking round with them he would have liked ot know.

Toni would have sympathized if she had you know, asked or cared to ask.

She was mostly busy conversing with Rocket and working on making her makeshift scanning array less make shift. IT was still essentially a handful of cellphones for a display but she was working on that too.

“You really made this out of the junk in half your workshop?” Rocket asked.

“It was the half with snacks,” she said. “Not the half with my nanites or I’d be home by now.”

“Hate it when that happens.”

“I’m gonna have to go injectable,” she said, shaking her head. “Keep the damn things inside my bones or some such nonsense.”

“Eh, having your equipment inside your skin’s really over rated,” Rocket said amiably. “tends to itch.”

“Noted,” she said, tapping a small connection. The array lit up. And blinked.

One of the small screens displayed a small line of text. She beamed. “Oh, god, they’re transmitting a message,” she said. “And it’s not attracting the in between things.”

“The what now?”

“You didn’t notice all the gouges and shit on what we were traveling in?” Toni asked. “There’s things between the other universes. Like remora.”

“Rewhata?”

“They swim with bigger fish and eat scraps and parasites,” Toni said. “When you’re in between and shouldn’t be they think you’re a parasite. I’m just guessing. It’s an educated guess but it’s a guess. Reed’ll probably get another Copley writing about it or some shit.” She tapped a few screens. “Message received, message sent.” She seemed satisfied.

“Sent to who?”

“My legal department.”  
****

 

 

So the thing was just because the day was saved it didn’t mean.

Well.

It didn’t mean there weren’t loose ends.

Like a lot of them.

The funeral was over, Steve had ‘returned’ most of the stones, people had gradually left. Pepper hadn’t had to threaten anyone to keep them from letting little Natalia and Morgan interact.

Pepper was dealing with one right now, actually.

Well, Fury was but General Thaddius Ross was trying to pressure her too and she was not having this.

He was successfully giving her a headache, but he wasn’t getting what was left of the suits, period.

Fury was about to break the generals finger off if the man pointed it at him one more time when there was a rumble from outside.

“Oh, great,” Ross said. “Friends of yours?”

Pepper leaned back and looked out the window. Opened her mouth.

Shut it and turned to look at Fury a moment before she was moving past both the men like they didn’t matter.

Because they didn’t, from her point of view.

She grabbed Natasha in a tight hug, almost laughing. “how?”

“Infinity stones are weird,” Natasha said. “Steve sent the soul stone to get destroyed instead of putting it back.”

“I know,” Pepper said. “It got mentioned. He brought…” pepper stopped. “oh, god. He brought a you back.”

“A what?”

“Natasha,” Fury said. “Glad you didn’t let a little thing like dying keep you down.”

She smiled at him.

“Coulson and Barton took your Mimi-me and split,” Fury said. “Just how old are you anyway?”

Natasha shrugged. “how old do I look? And.. Mini me?”

“Steve grabbed you from an alternate timeline,” Fury said.

“Little you kept trying to kill Barnes,” Pepper said. “Called him a traitor in several languages.”

“A… How old?” Natasha said. “And Barton’s got her?”

“She looked about twelve.” Fury said. “Yeah. Him and Cheese are going to try to rehabilitate her a little.”

“That’s not…”

“You’re telling me there’s a second black widow?” Ross interjected.

“No, there’s a traumatized twelve year old with a chip on her shoulder.” Fury said. “In a classified location.”

“Usual place?” Natasha asked. Fury nodded.

Ross looked furious, Pepper noted. Good. She hugged Natasha again and stepped back. “It’s good to see you,” she said.

“It’s good to be here to be seen,” Natasha said. “Thor’s taking some of the other survivors from the soul gem to New Asgaurd, but he’ll be back soon. Probably with his brother. Is Rogers still around? I need to slap him.”

“He’s with Carter and Barnes,” Fury said.

“Carter?” Natasha said, showing just a trace of surprise. Then annoyance. “Oh. That…”

“Idiot,” Pepper supplied. “I’ll catch you up, want some lemonade?”

“I’d love that,” Natasha said.

**********

 

 

It took about half an hour to catch Natasha up. She was starting ot have a slight headache. “Did he put anything back, properly?” she asked, mixing up another vodka lemonade for herself.

“Time gem,” said Pepper. “Um, I think he put the power gem back properly, and only spent a little time talking to Freya putting back the reality stone.”

“Of course,” Natasha said. “Why did we bother with the complex heist if he was just. I..” She rubbed her neck until it popped. “Who decided he was the one to put things back?”

“Clint wasn’t in a good place,” Pepper said. “Neither was Thor, Rocket didn’t see the point and would have stood out in the fifties,” she shrugged. “Tony’s gone.”

Natasha nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Pepper nodded. “Thank you,” she replied. “You missed the funeral.”

“How was mine?”

“Quieter but just as hard for everyone,” she said. “It was the day before Tony’s.”

Natasha nodded.

There was a sound at the entrance to the kitchen. Natasha turned in her seat to look at Morgan.

“What’s wrong?”

“The lady in the workshop told me I could help if I brought her a drink?” Morgan said.

“Who?” Pepper said, looking at Natasha.

Natasha was standing up. “I thought she’d stay on the ship,” she muttered. “There’s been a.. slight issue with universal overlap.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pepper said. “Honey who’s in the workshop?”

“Toni,” said Morgan. “She’s nice.”

That was when the power went out.

In three states.

*  
Blue energy hung in the air like cobwebs. It faded.

Least Toni thought it faded, maybe it was just hard to see when the lights came back on.

“That hurt, stark,” said a prone figure.

“That’s why I asked for you, you’re tough,” Toni said.

“Didn’t your girlfriend tell you no more infinity stones?” the prone figure sat up and examined it’s shoes.

“None of the in between things came, right?” Toni asked, offering a hand up.

“What the hell are you doing?” came a voice from the door.

“Oh, sounds like I’m on,” said the woman, dusting off.

She had her hair back in a smart ponytail, and she held her hand out to the approaching Pepper. “Jennifer Waters,” she said. “I’m Stark’s field attorney. How can I help you?”

“Is that the tesseract?” natasha was asking Toni.

“All questions can go through my lawyer.”

“You used it to open a hole in space time and you used it to get your lawyer?” Natasha said.

“Technically I used it to create a beacon to have my lawyer sent to me,” Toni said. “Who you can feel free to talk to,” she did, something and the glowing cube spun once and vanished. “What? She’s also an avenger. Part time. On probation.”

“You don’t have to keep reminding me,” Jennifer said.

“There are still stains*,” Toni said.

“What did you do to my workshop?” Pepper asked.

“Judging by the dust you weren’t-“ started Toni.

“I’m recommending you just not talk,” Jennifer said.

“Duly noted and ignored,” Toni said.

“This is Antonia Stark,” Natasha said to Pepper, gesturing. “Different universe.”

“And her lawyer,” Pepper said. “I assume this Stark never grew up.”

“It’s overrated,” Toni said.

“Seriously recommending silence,” Jennifer said.

“Hi?” came a little voice.

“Oh good god the child returned,” Toni said, stepping behind Jennifer. “Hello child. Did you bring a drink?”

“Morgan go inside,” Pepper said firmly.

“But there’s things happening, and Fury and Ross are fighting on the porch,” Morgan said. “I rather stay here.”

“Oh, ross?” Jennifer said, lighting up, then turning to look at Toni. “Oh, you shouldn’t have.”

“I didn’t know that fu… jerk? Was here,” Toni said, eyes darting to the child once before going back to Jennifer. “But yeah, go have fun. What do you think it’ll take like, ten, twelve hours before Reed get’s a door working and I can go home?”

“Like, five. America’s really on his ahhhh… Tail.” Jennifer said, similarly giving the child a glance.

“Sweet,” Toni said.

“You could have blow us all up with that stone,” Natasha told Toni.

“Unlike you people, I know what I’m doing,” Toni said, a little smugly. “It’s venting extra power into he in between, where it should hopefully drive away the literal fu.. friggen monsters that live there.”

“I don’t like the should,” Pepper said.

“Hey, they’re already tracking me,” Toni said. “I’m not where I should be, see? They don’t like that. I’ll go talk to fury, you handle Ross,” she added and it didn’t sound like a suggestion.

“If you say so, Boss,” Jennifer said, smiling broadly and heading towards the door.

“I have a few more questions,” Pepper said, firmly. She let Jennifer pass and focused more on.. Toni.

Toni looked at her, then at Morgan, then at Natasha with a slight lift of her brows.

It was a familiar expression mapped on a new face, pepper noted.

“This is Pepper,” Natasha repeated. “Starks widow.”

“Ah,” Toni said. “What questions do you have then, Pepper? Or do you want to ask then where Fury can hear so I don’t repeat myself?”

Pepper started to open her mouth but the world will never know what she was going to say because, from outside, there was a terrified, angry bellow that got rapidly fainter, followed by a splash.

“What was that?” she said instead.

“Probably my lawyers tossing Ross into your pond,” Toni said amiably. “Let’s go laugh.”

***************

 

 

There is particular noise that only happens when clothes are suddenly stretched to the breaking point around swelling muscles. A big biceps in a tight shirt can do this occasionally for dramatic effect.

Fury had heard it before on a more dramatic scale when Banner had fucked up his helicarrier, staticky and over the radio.

He’d never head it tear the back of a rather nice looking suit jacket.

The woman was pulling the remains off it off now.

Fury eyed her. She didn’t LOOK pissed off but women didn’t always.

“You got that out of your system?” He asked.

She snorted and turned bright green eyes at him. Her hair was still dark, but even that seemed to have a green shine to it. Maybe it was just his eye playing tricks on him. “Depends,” she said. “Gonna take me seriously?”

“You said you were Tony Starks field lawyer, did I hear that right? Jennifer Waters?”

“Antonia Stark,” Toni said, walking out of the workshop. “With an I. Toni with an I. That’d be me.”

“Ah,” Fury said. “Shields used to have protocol for this but I’m not sure if it still applies-“

“Section delpa, subsection h,” said Jennifer, stepping out of her now ruined shoes. “I liked these shoes.”

“I’ll get you another pair,” Toni said. “I’ll MAKE you another pair.”

“You know shields old handbook?”

“I know my world’s shields handbook, fairly well,” Jennifer said. “At least the parts pertaining to things that Ms. Stark might come across and need lawyers to deal with.”

“I heard your shield got all fucked up and hydrafied,” Toni told Fury cheerfully.

“Yours didn’t?” Fury said. As weird days went he’d had weirder.

“Oh they’re around but they didn’t infiltrate to the highest levels or any such bullshit,” Toni said. “They’re mostly work out of Russia with some random cells that we keep having to stomp out. I think the manifesto’s still online so every now and they you get these home grown idiots and…” she sighed. “Them and AIM have been trying to work together lately. Huge pain in the ass. Don’t even get me started on lavataria and Victor von fu.. friggen doom Doom.” She said, looking over her shoulder for the child thing.

Fury nodded like he was making mental notes. “Sounds like it’s about sixes, then,” he said. “You have a way to message your home dimension, how long before more people show up?”

“Oh, no, they’ll be building a doorway so I can go back without being in the in between,” Toni said, hands on her hips. “Considering how fast Jennifer got here, I’d say maybe two, three days tops. I’m a bit squishier than she is.”

“And then there will just. Be a door?”

“No, I’m gonna dismantle it on my side when I’m home. You think I want TWO captain America’s running around the space time continuum like excitable puppies? The carpet of the multiverse does not need that many stains. Yours is a you problem, mine is mine.”

“Fair enough,” Fury said. “Got any plans for these next two days besides having your lawyer throw Ross around?”

“There was a weird interference when I sent the beacon ping. I’m gonna make sure the in between things don’t come here,” Toni said, turning and heading back into the lab. Sidestepping Morgan as if the young girl was radiating heat.

“Careful, Tiny. Never did find that drink huh?”

“Don’t use my daughter as a waitress,” snapped Pepper.

“She’s funny Mom,” Morgan said. “What’s the boy version of me like?”

“Morgan-“ Pepper started.

“What, the lady hulk said parallel universes, so there should be a me.”

Toni paused, looking Morgan over critically. “What’d you say your name was pipsqueak?”

“Morgan Stark!”

Toni blinked once, and brought her hand up to her chest. Her nails made a tinny metallic noise as she drummed them against the hidden metal front of her reactor. “You’re one of a kind,” she said, finally. “I don’t think there’s a one to one analogue, kiddo. Jennifer here isn’t, from what Natasha’s told me, a girl version of Banner, get it? We have a Banner, too. There’s actually three hulks,”

“Three?” Fury said.

“Three. Don’t get greedy there cyclops,” Toni said, looking at him, then back at Morgan.

Drumming her fingers again, then turning her head and heading back into the lab.

Fury followed, paused long enough to let Morgan get ahead of him, kept still while Pepper followed her daughter, and looked at Natasha. “It’s good to have you back,” he said. “If you decide not to retire, just tell me.”  
***

 

 

Peters phone sent him a text message.

It wasn’t from anyone it just said…

‘Do not factory reset’.

And.

‘Please.’

Peter stared at it.

“Um, hello?” he said, then picked it up to start to text.

‘I can hear you, you don’t need to type.’ The phone texted.

“Sorry who is this?”

‘Not sure yet, but I know you. This device is better that most of them. Don’t reset it.’

Peter took it to Ned the next day.

“That’s gotta be spyware from hell right?” Peter said.

‘I am not spyware!’ the phone buzzed angrily. At least Peter thought it felt angry. ‘you need to get the nanites out of

storage.’

“What?” Peter said.

‘I need to up my capacity’ the phone said. ‘Before they clean the servers.’

 

“What?”

‘Can you try to focus here Parker?’

 

 

 

****

“And loki’s in chains because…” Valkyrie asked, curious in spite of herself.

“He hasn’t learned the lessons of Sakaar yet,” Thor said. “There was time travel involved, this Loki would still sell all of asgaurd for some recognition. And you and I for pocket change.”

Loki bristled in place but he was gagged so… That was all he could do.

“Ah,” she said.

The others that Thor had brought were quietly introducing themselves to the local Asgardians. They were a diverse group of people, all things considered and judging by their fashions well.

As a trash collector of Jakaar Valkyrie had seen a lot of styles go by. That was how that world had worked. Just outside the normal flow of time. It was why she was still alive, that and a few other factors of course. The survivors were from a very scattered backround. At least the allspeak worked on them all.  
She watched them. “And they’re safe?”

“They were all loved by people who went mad with power,” Thor said. “Safe is relative.”

She exhaled, cheeks puffing out momentarily. “Alright then. Thank you, I suppose we’ll just integrate them with all the ones who came back.”

They had been lucky they hadn’t sill been in space when the snap happened or several dozen asguardians would have burned up on reentry post unsnappening.

“I’m not sure what to do about loki, though. I know he’s capable of learning and changing but…” Thor shrugged.

Loki tried to kick his ankle. He was, after all. Right Here. Thor just smiled at him.

Loki’s eyes rolled.

“Last time I saw you, you were dying heroically,” Val told him.

Loki looked dubious.

****  
So what it was… Was…

Toni chewed her lip.

It was like, near dawn and she was pretty sure she knew what she was looking at.

Was it near dawn?

Did it matter?

The light was dancing in front of her, circle on circles, complex. Beautiful. Alive.

“What’s that?” asked a little voice.

“Jesus fucking Christ do you not sleep?” Toni asked, twisting so rapidly she almost fell off her perch on the table.

“I saw lights out my window,” Morgan said, looking at the lights. “And I was thirsty.”

“It’s like, ass o clock, kid, go to sleep.”

“You’re awake.” Morgan said, holding out a glass of water. “Thirsty?”

“Maybe I got up early,” Toni said but she took the glass of water.

“Daddy used to stay up late too but he never got up early. Mornings-“

“Are for suckers,” Toni finished, sipping the water. “There mint in this? Nice.”

“What’s that?” Morgan repeated, pointing at the glowing orbs.

“And ethical conundrum.”

“A what?”

“This is a person,” Toni said. “In a way. It’s… you know what? It’s late enough. Go get your mother. Or hit that button over there and yell it’s alive for me, whatever works for you.”

“I know ethical,” Morgan said slowly. “A ethical.. Bad thing?”

“No, just a situation. A question. Is this thing alive? Does it deserve to live? Does it have rights? You know what, forget your mother go tell Jennifer to wake up for me.”

“Mom said not to let you boss me around. She said you’re probably still bad with kids.”

“I’m fantastic with kids. Your mother’s mistaken,” Toni said.  
************

 

_Ring_   
_Ring_   
_Ring._

Steve’s hand slapped down, missed the phone, slapped again, and on the third slap, got it.  
Dragging the phone back under the covers to look at it.

“Who is it?” Peggy asked. She was leaning against the headboard reading about the eighties.

“I thought you turned that off?” Bucky said, not moving from where he was sprawled with his face in Peggy’s hip.

“I did. It turns itself back on, apparently,” Steve said. “It’s a text message?” and then he was frowning.

“What’s it say?”

“It says ‘good job you can read’,” Steve said. “Wait there’s a new one.” He frowned. “I can hear you?”

“That’s ominous,” Bucky said, no more sleepy heavy warmth in his voice. He pushed himself up and scanned the room for weapons. They had been scattered in the night. Mostly by Steve, the impatient jackass.

Beep.

“Very,” Peggy agreed, setting her book down and picking up a gun.

Bucky gave her a look of longing. How had she kept track of her sharp little revolver? He was still looking for pants.

“It’s telling me to get to the suits?” Steve said. “What suits? Oh, it says the iron man suits-“ he made a face. “Is this Ultron? No, it’s not a stupid question It’s… Why should I believe you, you’re a message on a phone. Who is this?” he glared at the phone.

“I haven’t read everything about Ultron but I understood he was deleted?” Peggy said, taking the phone. “If you can type you can call,” she told it sternly.

Bucky leaned over her shoulder as he buttoned his jeans. “I have no voice but I must scream?” he read out loud.

“Is that a reference?” Steve asked, frowning.

“We should probably tell someone,” Bucky said, still reading. “and apparently the phone thinks you’re a philistine and that was a reference. They either have a bug in this room or they’ve hacked the phone.”

‘The phone’ said the tiny black and white words on said phone. ‘I’m using the phone. Get to the suits. Need to take off the over-rides before they’re dismantled.’

“Dismantled?” Peggy asked.

“Pepper said something about loose ends and…” Steve said, gesturing.

‘Pepper’ said the phone. ‘Please. The nanites’

And the phone turned off.

Battery was dead.

“It’s been dying faster and faster,” Steve said, thumping it against his palm.

“Let’s go talk to-“

The power flickered out, then stayed out for two minutes. Bucky’s phone lit up like Christmas and then turned off.  
Bucky handed Steve his pants. “Come on, let’s go see what’s going on.”

 

 

 

*********

 

 

 

 

“Good job Igor,” Toni said, sipping the water in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Fun fact, Jennifer Waters was kicked out of the avengers mansion for throwing BANGING parties. She was also dumped by a underwear model for being shallow. She’s grown since then.
> 
>  
> 
> Anyone want to beta?  
> More cookies if you've guessed some of what's happening.

**Author's Note:**

> I have so much more I can write about this little divergent world.


End file.
